


Funeral Games

by Decepticonsensual



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 14:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13237656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: Lady Roberta Meserole's beloved brother is dead, and she's got an empire to run - and a nephew to raise.  Coping with a newly orphaned child is no easy task, however, even if that child weren't Havelock Vetinari.  Luckily, Bobbi thinks she understands her nephew a little better than most.  A quiet look at Havelock and Madam in the aftermath of Havelock's father's death.





	Funeral Games

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic of mine from more than a decade ago (with a few tweaks) that I recently rediscovered and wanted to share. Warning for slight mentions of violence.

There is something soothing about a funeral.

Lady Roberta Meserole gestured for the butler to begin discreetly clearing the plates that had found their way into corners and the onto ends of bookshelves, as the remaining reception guests drifted into aimless clumps. The calm that had settled over her seemed strange, even to Bobbi Meserole. True, she’d been born a Vetinari, and it was said that the blood of the Vetinari was ice water…

Well, for all of them except Christopher. For all he’d inherited the highest position in the Vetinari clan, the family’s legendary coldness seemed to have passed him by. Perhaps if he’d been heir to that, as well, he’d have lived longer; but then, she reflected, his funeral would probably not have been nearly as full, nor would half the tears have been genuine. When most of the Vetinari died, few people showed up for the wake, except to make certain the dearly departed was really dead.

Strange, still. It wasn’t the calm of gritted teeth, of dragging oneself through all the mechanistic rituals surrounding death, it was… serene, energising, even happy. She was certain it would hit her later, certain that there was something waiting behind the peace that lay in the pit of her stomach, smooth and cool like a stone. But for now, she could reflect, she could plan, she could even think Christopher’s name without her body cringing and her mind hurrying her away to painless, petty tasks.

Which was just as well, because after the funeral, she’d have to deal with The Boy.

She felt a pang of guilt. She’d been avoiding the encounter until he’d assumed the dread importance of capital letters in her mind. It was an unconscionable weakness on her part, considering the immense pains she’d taken to secure the child. The Boy was her brother’s only offspring, and as Christopher and Bobbi had been the only children of the rather infamous family patriarch, Bobbi was the child’s nearest living relative, as well as the closest thing to an adult heir the family possessed. It was understood that she was to act as a regent, of sorts, until The Boy was of age and could assume his place at the head of the family. There had been whispers, of course, and appraising glances, and a fair number of pointed questions at the clan conference following Christopher’s death, but in the end, the Vetinari were naturally very… no, “obedient” wasn’t the word Bobbi wanted. Nor was “pliable”. The Vetinari existed to exert influence, not to fall victim to it. The word was _pragmatic,_ she decided. The Vetinari were naturally pragmatic, and factional conflict was bad for business. They hadn’t risen to become one of the most powerful merchant families in the most powerful city-state on the Disc by infighting. The Vetinari _always_ Did What Needed To Be Done – a fact that had never particularly endeared them to Ankh-Morpork’s traditional aristocracy, who could trace their lineage to the court of the city’s last king, and who, in contrast, Did What Should Be Done. But then, that was why the aristocracy were so often reduced to auctioning off their palaces one wing at a time, while the Vetinari owned half of Ankh-Morpork. So Bobbi had been given absolute custody of The Boy, as well as of the family’s welfare, and it was generally agreed that whatever her ambitions might be, she would make, at least, a sensible guardian of both.

Bobbi was ambitious, of course. That was why she’d moved to Genua when she was barely a slip of a girl, and the reason behind her marriage to the late Lord Meserole (an obliging older gentleman who had possessed the three cardinal virtues of wealth, tolerance, and rapidly deteriorating health). But her determination to claim and care for The Boy had little to do with ambition, and everything to do with a languid summer afternoon the year before.

It had been unseasonably cool, a relief from the crushing, pungent heat of the city in July, and the evening light was slanting, treacle-warm, through the trees of the small orchard. Christopher was standing at the window of his family’s Scoone Avenue mansion, staring glassily over the back garden and the fruit trees beyond. He started when Bobbi padded up beside him and rested a delicate hand on his shoulder.

Christopher turned opulent blue eyes on her. There was a tightness to the fine skin of his jaw and throat, and when he finally spoke, his voice was low, harsh, and complex in a way she’d never heard before. “Look.”

Bobbi followed his gesture. The garden was littered with neglected toys – life-size chess sets, miniature armour and padded swords, cast-metal soldiers, wooden castles big enough for an entire army of neighbourhood children to use to withstand a siege.

But there was no army of children, just the small black smudge of a boy lying on the grass.

“Reading again,” said Christopher, and this time his voice was light and amused. “He hasn’t touched a single toy I’ve given him, but he’ll sneak into his poor late mother’s library and ransack it for new books. I give up!” He turned to smile at Bobbi, and her heart nearly broke at the fragile expression there. “You know better than I what to do with the boy, Bobbi! Perhaps you should be the one raising him, eh?”

It had pained her at the time, but now it haunted her – a soft ache, gentle as rain.

She’d put it off long enough. Best to do it now, while there were still strangers in the house, and they stood less chance of being interrupted. Now, where was he? Where would she be hiding, if she were nine and this were her father’s funeral?

Bobbi cast her mind back as she climbed the stairs almost absently. It had been only a scant few years, far too few, since she had last presided at a funeral in this house; presided, because Christopher had been huddled in his room, numb and shaking, on the verge of screaming at the very light that washed through the chamber, weak and cheerful and obscene. Imogen Vetinari’s death had come so suddenly; Christopher’s glittering bride, so subtle and assured in the way she smiled by his side, had been taken by a fever that ravaged like wildfire. It had stripped her of her subtlety, leaving her whimpering and sweating on a drenched, stinking bed. And then abruptly she had been gone, and Bobbi had spent a bright morning trying to match flowers to a mahogany casket, and The Boy had been only six, and Christopher had never really forgiven him for what he’d done then – or rather, failed to do.

The funeral reception had been much the same as this one, except that three years ago, she’d had Christopher’s voice whispering in her ear. It had been taut and sandpapery with raw tears, but at least she’d had it.

_“Havelock isn’t crying, Bobbi.”_

_“He’s probably exhausted, poor thing.”_

_“No, he hasn’t shed a tear this entire time. His mother’s been dead three days, Bobbi! I thought at first that he must not be able to wrap his mind around that, so I asked him if he understood that Mummy wasn’t coming back. And he gives me a nod and says yes, I understand, Mummy’s dead – and he goes right on and finishes his lunch. How can he be so –“_

_“Shhhhh. It’s all right, Chris, perhaps his heart hasn’t caught up with his head yet.”_

_“If he has a heart.”_

_“Chris! That’s your son! Imogen’s son!”_

_“I’m sorry, Bobbi. It’s just that – three days, and not a single tear. Acquaintances she barely knew are bawling their eyes out for her. He_ is _her son, Bobbi, so why can’t he occasionally act like it? People were_ … talking _at the ceremony.”_

_“I know. Couldn’t you put a stop to it?”_

_“And say what? Please take no notice of the fact that my son is a cold-blooded little –“_

_“Chris,_ stop _it.”_

And Bobbi had glanced up from where she’d been hissing in her brother’s ear, and had seen The Boy sitting in a dark corner of the staircase, resting his chin in his hands and rather too deliberately _not_ looking in their direction. And she’d led Christopher by the hand back to the reception, and never said a word.

No wonder he’d decided to hide this time.

Bobbi surveyed the upstairs rooms as she moved along the corridor. The Boy’s own room would have been too risky, his father’s room too public. Dank storerooms smacked of a child’s hiding place, and this particular child didn’t think that way. And so it wasn’t too much of a surprise when she finally stumbled across him in one of the smaller sewing rooms, sitting very still.

Her brother’s eyes – the exact shape and colour, if nothing like the same expression – gazed impassively at her from a face with all the delicate beauty of Imogen’s. Havelock looked up as Bobbi entered, stripes of light and shadow falling heavily across his upturned face. The contrast blurred his outline; for a moment, she felt as if he were only half real, and checked her movement towards him.

Slowly, now.

She glanced towards the overstuffed armchair, one eyebrow rising just slightly. He dropped his gaze in acceptance.

Bobbi settled her skirts around her as she sat. There was a pleasant crinkling of taffeta under her fingers, and she deliberately prolonged the sound, fussing with the creases of the fabric. It disrupted the thick quiet of the room. She knew better than to try and match silences with Havelock.

Instead she allowed only a moment of stillness, took a breath, and said, “Havelock, I’m to be your guardian from now on. I’m sure your father told you that if anything happened to him, I would take care of you.”

“Yes, Aunt Bobbi.”

“I think,” she continued in the same even voice, “it might be better for you to start calling me Madam. All my associates do.”

There was something like relief in the boy’s eyes as they momentarily flickered to hers, and he straightened up and said, “Yes, Madam.”

“Good.” Bobbi smiled at him, but only softly. “Now, this house is, of course, yours, along with all of your father’s estate. There’s the country villa as well.” That was a non-starter, naturally; Havelock adored the city, melted into the cobbled streets as if they’d simply sprung up around him, but she felt this was a time to be thorough. “After everything has been settled here you may live wherever you choose, and I will accompany you.”

The gaze was studying her again. How strange, the way the slanting light seemed to pool in his eyes, making them look almost amber instead of blue.

There was a whisper of resignation about the set of his mouth as he gathered his thoughts, so she intervened before he could speak. “I’ve also taken a house of my own in the city,” Bobbi continued smoothly. “If you’d prefer, you could live with me there until you start school.”

He nodded, the grim expression softening and fading.

“On the corner of Easy Street and Treacle Mine Road,” said Bobbi, after a beat.

Havelock’s eyes widened, and in one glorious moment Bobbi heard his breath catch. “In the Shades?”

“You’d like that?”

The boy nodded again, but circumspectly this time, and shifted his gaze away from Bobbi’s face. She imagined that for the heir of one of the Scoone Alley families to willingly give up the lushly fashionable boulevards of Ankh for the most dangerous alleys of Morpork was unheard-of. Certainly, a few of the younger aristocrats might occasionally saunter over the Brass Bridge to spend a night blustering and boozing in the Shades, but that was considered a test of bravado, and it was usually long before dawn that they’d come racing back across, trembling. Still, the Shades had one commodity Bobbi treasured. The neighbourhood might be destitute, but it was rich in shadows – soft grey shadings around the edges of the light, and more opulent shadows, like bruised velvet, that camouflaged every kind of business. And for the connoisseur, there were the darkest shadows of all – chilly obsidian pools fathoms deep. Havelock would know how to value those.

Bobbi found the back of her throat tightening as she let her eyes brush over the boy’s profile, tracing this time not the echos of his parents’ faces, but the contours of his own: the high cheekbones, the stark line of the jaw, and the pale mouth with the mercurial shadows at its corners. _Not that_ , she told herself. _The last thing you’re allowed to do right now is cry._

“And then, of course, you’ll be starting school in September,” she continued in the same voice of relentless calm. This was the difficult part; she honestly didn’t know how he was going to react. She watched Havelock’s expression hawkishly. “Your father planned to enroll you in the academy at the Assassins’ Guild.”

Christopher had put Havelock’s name down years ago, as a matter of course. The Assassins’ School was the natural repository for the sons of gentlemen; it gave the best all-round education in the city, as well as offering more… specialised training. But that had been before Christopher Vetinari had run afoul of some of the most powerful interests in Ankh-Morpork, before the mansion on Scoone Avenue had received a visit one awful afternoon. Thank the gods Havelock hadn’t been the one to discover his father. One of the upstairs maids had happened on the body; but Havelock would have heard the scream, and Bobbi knew that even the most solicitous and careful crowd of servants wasn’t enough to stop a slender, silent, and determined nine-year-old boy from slipping past them into his father’s study. He had almost certainly seen the blood, and the expression, and the sleek, professional crossbow dart buried obscenely in Christopher’s chest…

There wasn’t so much as a flicker of emotion on Havelock’s face as he nodded once more.

“You don’t have to agree. There are a number of schools in the city, or you could be privately tutored.”

“Why wouldn’t I agree?”

He raised his eyes to her face, and there _was_ an emotion there now. The boy was warily defiant. His gaze raked through hers, looking for any hint of shock or disapproval or pain.

_Go on, then, call me heartless, too. I dare you._

Bobbi permitted herself a small, satisfied smile. “Excellent.”

Havelock sat back slightly in surprise, those eyes still fixed full on Bobbi’s face. The afternoon was dying now, and the lingering light flared red in the boy’s gaze.

Bobbi stared back at him a moment too long. She watched the steely resistance in the child’s eyes start to melt all too rapidly, and finally it was for her own sake as much as his that she looked away.

“Have your things packed up by tomorrow afternoon; I can always send a coach back here later on if you require anything else.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Bobbi could see Havelock nod. Tears were streaming down his face now.

“Take as many books as you’d like. The house on Easy Street has room for an entire library.” She rose. “The reception guests will likely have wandered home by now, so I’ll begin making my own preparations. I’ll see you very soon.”

A part of her ached to look at him as she swept out of the room. She pushed it ruthlessly aside, and stepped over the threshold without a backward glance. Only then did she feel herself letting go, crumpling under her own, abruptly numb weight, as she grabbed the doorknob and hastily pulled it to.

From behind the closed door came a low, wretched sob. Bobbi leaned protectively against it for a moment, then stepped away, schooling herself (not for the last time) to hear nothing as she left.


End file.
